


the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn

by hyphyp



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23760721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyphyp/pseuds/hyphyp
Summary: Altair is a killer. Malik is either something better, or something worse.(Or: Five times Altair kills someone, plus one time he doesn’t.)
Relationships: Malik Al-Sayf/Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad
Comments: 17
Kudos: 103





	1. A Guard

**Author's Note:**

> i'm posting this all at once but breaking it into chapters for pacing reasons

The hidden blade retracts from the man’s throat with a wet _shink_ and Altair shakes his wrist a little to chase away the blood. There’s not much; it’s a clean kill. He’s slipping past the guard’s post and into the armory before the body hits the stones. It barely even registers to him that he’s killed a man. He has a job to do.

The papers are in the desk where he was told they would be, the incriminating seal stamped on each of them. Al Mualim will be pleased. Altair isn’t entirely sure what the Master intends to do with this evidence, only that it will be good for the order. Al Mualim always does what’s best – for the Brotherhood, and for the people.

Altair folds the papers and places them in his belt before doing a sweep of the room for anything else that might be of use. There are a few trinkets, but no more documents, and Altair doesn’t bother weighing himself down. The Brotherhood provides all that he needs. The only assassins who come back with coins and jewels are the stupid ones who get distracted. They all eventually stop coming back.

Altair leaves through the window, leaping across to an adjacent roof. As agreed, Malik is waiting for him at the meeting spot, already back from his own mission. Altair isn’t certain what it was Al Mualim asked him to do, only that it was important they complete their tasks at the same time. They haven’t discussed it. They rarely do, and it’s only partly out of respect for secrecy. Mostly it’s just from pride.

“Are you finished yet?” Malik asks shortly, straightening out of a lean.

He’s always like that, annoyed and condescending, like he’s been waiting all night for Altair to run a simple errand. It bothers Altair, in a way no one else does.

People are often put off by Altair, by his abilities. They call him arrogant because he isn’t self-effacing. They dislike him for being stronger than them rather than working to become strong themselves. Malik seems to find Altair arrogant as well, but he doesn’t respond the way the others do. He’s arrogant right back. It’s like he’s saying, “You’re good? So what? So am I.”

It drives Altair mad. It makes him want to show Malik how good he is, how much better he can become, to make Malik acknowledge Altair. The others stare and whisper and Altair doesn’t care about them but only Malik scoffs and looks away and Altair wants to force him to _look at me –_

“I’m finished,” Altair says, tone clipped. “And you?”

“I’ve done what was necessary,” Malik says, and nothing more.

They return to the horses.

The night is clear, the stars are out, and the vast emptiness they inhabit. As they begin the ride back to Masyaf the only clear sound is the pounding of hoofs on the dirt. Malik slows to a walk a few miles out and Altair follows suit.

“It was an easy job,” Malik says, breaking the silence. “It seems strange that Al Mualim would give these tasks to us.”

“Are you complaining?” Altair asks. “That’s unlike you. Usually you’re telling me to be grateful to be trusted by the Master.”

“No, I only –” Malik frowns and breaks off. There is something else, something about his task that has disconcerted him, but he doesn’t want to say what it is. He looks askance at Altair, measuring him with his eyes somehow. “Perhaps you’re rubbing off on me. I should be pleased that it all went smoothly and no one was killed.” He pauses. “Unless you killed someone?”

There is a trap in these words that Altair’s uncertain of. He seems to be asking what Altair was told to do. But why he doesn’t come right out and say it eludes Altair.

“No,” Altair says. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

Malik nods, looking pensive, but says nothing more.

They ride for a few minutes more before Altair remembers the guard.

“I did,” he corrects.

“What was that?” Malik asks.

“I did kill someone,” Altair says. “A guard. I’d forgotten.”

Malik stares at him and then his face takes on that scrunched look of annoyance it inevitably gets when Altair spends too much time around him.

“You forgot,” he repeats. “What did he look like? Did you even get a good look? Do you remember? You murdered a man and forgot a moment later.”

“We’re assassins,” Altair says. “It’s what we do.”

“It’s what you do,” Malik retorts. “For the rest of us it isn’t so easy. This is why the others dislike you, Altair. You kill as if it were nothing. It scares people. It’s wrong.”

Altair scowls. Somehow Malik always finds a way to criticize him, even when he does things perfectly. ‘Too perfect,’ he says, and makes it a fault.

“And why do the others dislike you, then?” he snaps, irritated. “They hate you just as much as they hate me.”

And they do, although they’re more subtle about it. They whisper less and glare more. Altair means to annoy Malik by mentioning it, to jab him back, but Malik only quirks a brow.

“Oh, you noticed that,” Malik says. “It’s because I’m mean.”

Altair can say nothing in response. After all, it is the truth.


	2. A Target

“If you had been born a general’s son, you would have been kicked out of the army in a week,” Malik says from the doorway.

Altair finishes dragging the feather through the target’s blood and then looks up at Malik. Malik looks angry, but Malik usually looks angry. It’s in the variations of his anger that his true feelings lie. This is the secret that Altair has learned over the years, the intimate knowledge of men who have fought back to back.

Right now, Malik is furious, but he’s also exasperated. There’s a tinge of disbelief in his tone, like he can’t believe Altair’s done it again. What Altair’s done this time is abandon the plan (because he thought of a better one), leave Malik to make his own way (which he was perfectly capable of doing without Altair’s help), and find a different angle to approach the assassination.

Altair stands from his crouch and offers the blood-wet feather to Malik.

“If you had been born a general’s son,” Altair counters, “you would have become Sultan.”

Malik snatches the feather away. His lips twitch. He hides it well, but Altair knows every crease of that face by now. He’s contemplated it as carefully as his own.

“Then it’s doubly lucky for you that both our fathers were assassins,” Malik says.

Altair nods in concession, because, after all, his head is still attached to his neck.

Malik looks at the feather, and then past Altair, to the dead man. His nostrils flare; a new facet of his anger shifts into focus.

“Did he say anything before he died?” he asks.

Altair hesitates before answering, considering him.

“Are you mad because I went off on my own, or because you didn’t get to kill him yourself?”

Malik gives him a sharp look that tells Altair that he has been uncharacteristically shrewd.

“I’m capable of being mad at you for multiple reasons,” Malik says.

This, Altair doesn’t need telling.

“He begged for his life,” Altair says, to please Malik. “He tried to bribe me. He cried like a child.” Altair had stabbed him from behind, without making a sound.

Malik hums, satisfied, and contemplates the feather a moment longer before tucking it away.

“Many suffered at his hands,” he says. “Now they’ll know peace, in this world and the next. It was a good kill.”

Altair wants to say something to this, but he doesn’t know what, or how. Maybe, you wanted this man to die in pain, choking on his own greed, and it had nothing to do with justice or duty. There’s something wrong with you for that. But this is something Altair knows and understands without really believing.

It would make him a hypocrite anyway. They’re not so different, after all. Altair feels nothing, and Malik feels absolutely everything. It amounts to the same thing, in the end. They do their jobs. They serve the Brotherhood.


	3. An Innocent

Altair’s back is against the roughly hewn rock wall before he even realizes Malik’s fingers have sunk into the fabric at his chest. The shove isn’t harsh enough to knock the breath out of him, but the surprise nearly does so anyway. Also, the vicious cant to Malik’s expression, which always leaves Altair feeling slightly dizzy and off-kilter, all the more so when it’s pointed in Altair’s direction.

“That man was innocent,” Malik says.

But they are standing over the corpse of the old man and Malik doesn’t even look at the blood pooling beneath their feet. He looks at Altair, eyes alight. Kadar hovers uncertainly, caught between loyalty to his brother and the hero worship he has for Altair.

“He would have called the guard if he had seen us,” Altair says. “Let go of me. We have a job to do.”

“’Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent,’” Malik quotes at him through his teeth.

“Who is innocent?” Altair asks. “Who decides?” He quotes back, “’Nothing is true, Everything is permitted.’”

Malik’s eyes flash. In the dim torch light, they are like pinpricks of dark, like the spaces between the stars, cold and black and infinite. Altair thinks for a moment that Malik is going to hit him, maybe with the intent to kill. Some impulse shudders through the hands still clenched in his robes. Altair feels the spasm in the beating of his own heart.

But Malik releases him and turns away. He still doesn’t look at the dead body. Neither does Altair.

“I will scout ahead,” Malik spits. “Try not to dishonor us further.”

Then he darts away, leaving Altair with Kadar and the corpse.

“It was an excellent kill,” Kadar offers, a little half-heartedly.

Altair glances at him. He never forgets that Kadar is Malik’s brother, because it seems so unlikely. There is none of that same viciousness in him. Kadar is all soft baby fat and earnestness, eager to please and modest in his own skill. He’s no longer a novice, but he still hangs behind, uncertain of his own place and waiting to be reassured. He’ll grow into it in time, but he’ll never be what Malik is.

And what is Malik?

“Kadar, listen to me – I will give you some good advice,” Altair says. “Don’t try to become too much like your brother.”

Kadar frowns, and looks at the body. He’s misunderstood. Or Altair has misspoken, which he often does – he’s no good at these things, at getting others to follow his train of thought. Now Kadar is thinking of rules, of creeds. He’s thinking of Malik’s way and Altair’s way, of his brother and his idol. He’s thinking – was it better to kill or not to kill?

Altair steps off in the direction Malik went, giving up. Maybe he’ll try to explain it later – what he meant was, the hands against his breast, shaking in fury. What he meant was, Kadar, don’t become a dagger so sharp it slices through its own sheath. Kadar, don’t become a blade that hates to be a blade. Kadar, don’t become the kind of man who is afraid of who he might be in a world without laws, because this is a world without laws. Nothing is true, and Everything is permitted.

But if Malik is not so wise and only pretends to be, then Altair is less wise and doesn’t pretend so skillfully. Kadar dies before Altair can tell him what kind of man he shouldn’t become.


	4. Majd Addin

In the bureau, Malik looks tired more than he looks angry, and he still looks plenty angry. Altair knows it has nothing to do with the war, or with the Brotherhood’s struggles, no matter how tense things in Jerusalem might be. Malik isn’t the kind of man to become worn down by outside pressure. He thrives in it. He burns brighter under threat, like he intends to live and be victorious out of spite alone.

No, what weighs him down now is his own grief. His mind is eating itself alive.

Altair can see it. He thinks, _I did this to him_ , and it isn’t with the triumphant crowing he would have expected. How long has Altair wanted to see Malik pulled from his high horse into the mud? But they are both covered in filth.

Altair gives Malik the bloody feather, and Malik takes it without really seeing it.

He must see them all the time these days, in his dreams. They must fall like snow. Altair wonders whose blood stains them. Kadar’s? Altair’s? Maybe in his dreams Malik slits the world’s throat, and the river of blood that pours from the wound is so great that everything drowns.

There is something assassin novices learn without being taught – if you run your fingers along the sides of a crisp feather very quickly, you can cut yourself on the fine edges. Just a little. Just enough to leave a dot of red.

Altair has spent too long contemplating Malik’s non-reaction to the feather. Malik looks up at him from his map, gaze suddenly sharp.

“Was there something else you wanted from me?” he demands. “Besides what you’ve already taken?”

“I return from an assassination, and you have no words of wisdom for me?” Altair asks dryly. “Surely I have failed in some spectacular fashion.”

“You performed as you should, no more, no less,” Malik says. “That you expect praise for merely doing as told troubles me.”

“It seems everything I do troubles you,” Altair says.

“Reflect on that,” Malik tells him.

“I have, at length,” Altair says.

Malik straightens, sets his quill aside, and begins to look his old self again. That is, like he’s done gnawing for marrow in his own bones and would like to rip Altair’s warm throat out with his teeth.

“Oh?” he asks with an edge. “And dare I ask what you concluded?”

“You once said to me,” Altair begins, “that if I had been born a general’s son, I’d be kicked out of the army in a week. And I said to you, if you were born a general’s son, you’d become Sultan. But if you and I had both been born general’s sons, I would have stayed. I would have trained every day, harder than all the others, until there was none worthier than I. When you became Sultan, there would be no other man capable of standing at your side. I would be your loyal sword. Then, because I am me, the inevitable day would come when I did something to make you angry. And because, in this universe, you were Sultan, there would be nothing whatsoever to hold you back from being you. You would lop my head from my shoulders yourself. You would say to me, it’s too bad, Altair, that you were born a general’s son. And I would say, for you as well, my Sultan.”

Malik stares at Altair. His face is blank. He has no reply.

Altair leaves through the lattice roof. On the way back to Masyaf, he wonders why he feels like he just told Malik he loves him.


	5. Al Mualim

Altair stands over the body of Al Mualim. Malik stands beside him.

“Are you sorry?” Malik asks.

“Yes,” Altair says.

“It had to be done,” Malik reassures him.

But Altair already knew that. It’s why he did it.

“Are you sorry?” Altair asks.

There is a pause.

“No,” Malik says.

But Altair already knew that, too.

He looks at the sky and wishes it were night, when the stars come out, and the spaces in between. In the light of day everything is obvious and it all looks so ugly. In the light of day, you kill a man face to face, you look into his eyes, you see the cracks there. He sees the cracks in you. In the light of day, there are laws and rules and creeds that must be followed. There are traditions to fulfill. There are pantomimes to put on. They are countless and inscrutable and useless and worst of all they are obvious, laid bare, and everyone can see the pageantry and yet no one will admit it for what it is, not even here, in the place where Nothing is true, and Everything is permitted.

Someone will come for Al Mualim’s body. Someone must become the new Mentor. Someone must do something about the apple. Someone will have to smother in himself what is obvious to all, straighten his spine, and make plans for the future.

If it were night, Altair would throw Al Mualim’s empty shell from the cliff. He would slip away into the shadows, nothing more than a whisper. He would return to Masyaf with a fistful of feathers, each stained deep red, and when he delivered them to Malik, Malik wouldn’t ask, whose blood is this? He would know without being told – it is Al Mulaim’s, it is ours.

Altair stands over Al Mualim’s body and wishes it were night. Malik stands beside him in the full glare of the sun. Altair is glad for it.

“I wish I could be angry, like you,” Altair confesses suddenly. “Instead of sorry.”

“No,” Malik says, with certainty. “You don’t.”


	6. Abbas

“Have you ever wanted to kill someone, Altair?” Malik asks.

It’s a funny question to ask a killer. It’s enough to drag Altair from his thoughts, away from the apple sitting on his desk. He looks at Malik, studying his face for some sign of humor, but there’s no trace of amusement.

“I kill people all the time,” Altair reminds him.

“Because you were told to,” Malik says. “Or because it is necessary. Or because it seems simpler that way. You’ve done many stupid things, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you kill from anger. Have you ever wanted to?”

Altair barely needs to think about it. He was a novice once, after all, hotheaded and prideful. Less so as he grew more competent, but on those rare times he felt rage as an adult, there was a deadliness to it that almost defied restraint.

“Yes,” he says, a little warily, seeking the trap.

“And did you?”

“No.”

Malik’s lips curl, but it isn’t a pleasant smile.

“I have,” he says. “I do it all the time. In fact, it’s almost the only way I kill, by being furious. At what the men I kill do to the world, to others, at what they do to the Brotherhood. If I can’t find a reason to hate them, it feels wrong. But I can usually find a reason.”

Altair considers him. This is the sort of thing their teachers would have certainly found disturbing, had they known. But perhaps they were too busy being disturbed by Altair. Maybe Altair should have been more disturbed, all these years. Perhaps he was too busy being disturbing.

“There’s a reason for that,” Altair says. “Anger makes you better. It makes you smarter, sharper, more driven. You see things better when they matter. Not like me. Anger only makes me stupid.”

“You think too highly of me,” Malik says. “I’m sorry to report that it is your greatest fault.”

The candle flame between them flickers, throwing the shadows on the walls into commotion. The inkpot twists into something monstrous and moving. The books tower and then shrink. The apple swallows a whole wall, and then spins, and dances across the stones.

“I have to ask,” Malik says. “Is it wise to spare him?” He means Abbas.

“I don’t know,” Altair says plainly. “Is it?”

Malik hesitates. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I want him dead too badly to see it clearly.”

Altair runs a hand across his mouth, exhausted. Everything was supposed to be exposed now. The truth had been discovered. But he feels no more certain than before. One answer reveals a thousand more questions, like scorpions scattering out from under an overturned rock. Obviously Malik feels the same way.

“It’s too late, now,” Altair says, turning back to the apple, mother of all scorpions; mother of all rocks. “I’ve already spared him. It would look poorly on me if I went back on my word.”

“He might kill us in the end,” Malik says distantly. “He probably will.” But he doesn’t disagree.

Altair thinks about this.

“He’s not capable of it,” he finally decides. Then, after a moment, he adds, “There’s only one man in the world I’d let kill me.”

He glances at Malik to see how he responds, but Malik isn’t looking at him. He’s staring out the window, across the village, at the place where the mountaintops cut clumsily into the rising moon. They take a bite out of it, and leave a jagged rip of earthly darkness in place of heavenly light.

Malik’s face is placid. Despite their conversation, he seems to have grown calm. The muscles in his jaw have relaxed. His shoulders sit at ease. His stump doesn’t look like it’s bothering him right now, not the way it sometimes cramps up with phantom pains, and his empty sleeve hangs like a limp, white flag. He looks at peace.

“Then you’ll have to die of old age,” Malik says, at last. “Because you’re the only man in the world he doesn’t want to kill.”

He turns and looks at Altair, eyes wide open. Altair looks back, at the stars, and at the spaces in between.

I love you, Altair thinks. Who knows if Malik is thinking it back.

What he says is, “It is good you weren’t born a general’s son, Altair.”

Altair smiles, and says, “For you as well, my friend.”

**Author's Note:**

> additional tags: i don't care about canon even a little bit


End file.
